6/18/2014

It’s been around for 82 years, but it turns out that the name was disparaging and illegal all along!

The United States Patent and Trademark Office has canceled the Washington Redskins trademark registration, calling the football team’s name “disparaging to Native Americans.”

The landmark case, which appeared before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, was filed on behalf of five Native Americans. It was the second time such a case was filed.

No word yet on whether this will force a change to the name. If the team sticks with the name, fighting knockoffs will become well-nigh impossible.

If the fans were really offended by the name, the fans could have expressed that — and it would have changed. It didn’t take the NBA long to deal with Donald Sterling, and we didn’t need government to get involved — the NBA acted quickly because failure to do so would have had immediate market repercussions for the franchise and the league.

I don’t want to say that federal agencies simply do Obama’s bidding, but he didn’t like the name, you know.

He also said the IRS scandal was made up, and sure enough, Republicans have failed to find a single Lois Lerner smoking gun email.

Coming next: that grinning Cleveland Indians logo.

UPDATE: SPQR reminds us of the First Amendment implications here. I agree with him that this decision violates the First Amendment. This is unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination in a limited public forum. More on that in a future post.

I don’t want to say that federal agencies simply do Obama’s bidding, but he didn’t like the name, you know.

A bureaucracy or any large organization or company contains many people that take their cues from the person in charge, from the big man on campus. But I’ve read that the creeping idiocy of political correctness run amok was starting to affect, for example, the US military (no less) even back when George W Bush was in the White House. IOW, if it was beginning to corrupt things over 6 years ago, it will be far, far worse today.

UPDATE: SPQR reminds us of the First Amendment implications here. I agree with him that this decision violates the First Amendment. This is unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination in a limited public forum. More on that in a future post.

HteWon is really getting desperate. There’s only so much bandwidth, and this will consume a lot over the next few weeks. So this is beneficial to HIM. Look for some “rogue” patent bureaucrats in distant cities to eventually get the blame, er, credit, after it’s discovered that the head of the Patent and Trademark office spent 82 days meeting with unnamed officials in the White House. I’d say that this will have limited legs unless Congress takes the bait. If they do then we can go thru the whole “dog ate my computer” charade. Far better to let this fester and watch the PC crowd trumpet their triumph. This will not go down well with those Democrats who still work for a living. It is a timely lesson in the sort of thing we can expect when the Federal Government abandons the Rule of Law. And it is relatively harmless. Better yet, once the trademark is withdrawn, the market place will be flooded with Redskin stuff, most of it unrelated to the football team. But it will all be reminder of how instrusive our masters wish to become.

It’s been around for 82 years, but it turns out that the name was disparaging and illegal all along!

Something roughly similar happened also in the Reagan Adminsitration, when a tax exemption was removed from a college because opinion had changed. The Reagan Administration actually didn’t want to do it.

Under pre-1970 IRS regulations, tax exemptions were awarded to private schools regardless of their racial admissions policies, and Bob Jones University was approved for a tax exemption under that policy. Pursuant to a 1970 revision to IRS regulations that limited tax-exempt status to private schools without racially discriminatory admissions policies, the IRS informed the University on November 30, 1970 that the IRS was planning on revoking its tax exempt status as a “religious, charitable . . . or educational” institution. In response, the University filed suit in 1971 in Bob Jones University v. Schultz

On January 8, 1982, just before the case was to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court, President Ronald Reagan authorized his Treasury and Justice Departments to ask that the BJU case be dropped and that the previous court decisions be vacated. Political pressure quickly brought the Reagan administration to reverse itself and to ask the Court to reinstate the case. Then, in a virtually unprecedented move, the Court invited William T. Coleman, Jr. to argue the government’s position in an amicus curiae brief, thus ensuring that the prosecution’s position would be the one the Court wished to hear.[112] The case was heard on October 12, 1982, and on May 24, 1983, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Bob Jones University in Bob Jones University v. United States (461 U.S. 574).

He also said the IRS scandal was made up, and sure enough, Republicans have failed to find a single Lois Lerner smoking gun email.

Are you completely ignoring the fact that the IRS claims to have lost the emails in a “system crash”, despite the fact that no one elses email was lost and all of their email is hosted on centralized servers?

8. …Better yet, once the trademark is withdrawn, the market place will be flooded with Redskin stuff, most of it unrelated to the football team. But it will all be reminder of how instrusive our masters wish to become.

bobathome (5ccbd8) — 6/18/2014 @ 8:30 am

?!?!

So, let me get this straight. The US Patent & Trademark Office is trying to make a point about the offensiveness and unacceptability of the name “Redskins” by stripping the team of its trademark. Thus hurting the franchise by depriving it of revenue, since now anyone can use the name and I presume the logo.

And if the franchise loses money as a result of knock-off products flying off the shelf, that would prove the Redskins name and logo are popular. Thus proving the US Patent & Trademark Office wrong when it deems the name and logo offensive and unacceptable.

I honestly don’t understand the logic. The government has decided to force the Redskins to change their offensive and unacceptable name and logo by letting everyone who wants to do so use their popular and acceptable name and logo?

Besides the first amendment, it’s also a fifth amendment violation. Trademarks are not like patents or copyrights; they’re not a gift from the government to encourage desirable activity, their purpose is to protect consumers from fraud. As such, it’s not within the government’s scope to “grant” a trademark or not, but merely to recognise that something is being used as a genuine trademark, and therefore deserves protection. Refusing to protect a trademark not only cheats consumers, but also takes a valuable asset without compensation.

This is why the first priority of a New Republican Admin should be remove every Liberal from Government and defund every single NGO or Non-profit with ties to Liberalism. Number 1 Priority is to starve the animals of sustenance.

Second priority to cut 10% of Federal workforce within 2 years in office so that way we thin the heard even further. Sorry but we need a war on on the Liberal Brown Shirts and a vicious one to boot. Ruin them, no matter the cost and they will disburse.

So then, Milhouse, wouldn’t sports fans have standing to sue? And not just Redskins fans, and not just football fans, but all fans of all teams of all sports, since the feds can simply revoke any trademark of any team name and logo they don’t deem sufficiently aligned with 21st century sensitivities.

17. Well, refusing to register a trademark on grouds of offensiveness would kind of make sense if it had never been used, and then it would never catch on.

Steve’s point is that if it’s truly offensive to the public, as opposed to a tiny elite, then it will never catch on even if registered. The point of not registering an allegedly offensive name is to spare people from being offended while it fails to catch on. But if it does catch on then by definition it must not be that offensive, and the refusal to register will turn out retroactively to have been wrong. Here we have a trademark that’s already popular, and therefore by definition not offensive.

So then, Milhouse, wouldn’t sports fans have standing to sue? And not just Redskins fans, and not just football fans, but all fans of all teams of all sports, since the feds can simply revoke any trademark of any team name and logo they don’t deem sufficiently aligned with 21st century sensitivities.

I think fans would only have standing to sue the knock-off makers, for fraud. They thought they were buying official gear, and were sold something else. That is the point of trademark law, after all. I don’t think they’d have standing to sue the government for not enforcing this protection against fraud, any more than a burglary victim has standing to sue the government for not lax policies that fail to prevent burglaries.

The team, on the other hand, has had something valuable taken away, and surely is entitled under the 5th amendment to fair compensation.

There’s nothing that is guaranteed not to offend someone, someplace, some time. There’s a guy who comments here who finds “compassion” offensive, for crying out loud. Not that I feel sorry for the NFL, but I feel even less sorry for thin-skinned motherf***ers.

#17, Steve, I’m hoping that this will become a “remember the Alamo” moment. It’s easy to understand (our masters in the Federal government have run amok,) it is relatively harmless, and the logo is memorable and respectable. And in the meantime, the team would be well advised to focus on their play. A Super Bowl appearance will do them more good than any conceivable marketing and PR campaign.

There’s a guy who comments here who finds “compassion” offensive, for crying out loud.

To be specific, nk, cheap, excessive, knuckleheaded type of compassion: Compassion for compassion’s sake. Such as what’s behind the belief that “redskins” is such an offensive and hurtful word, that it should be legally challenged and publicly excoriated, publicly repudiated. At a time when the “n” word is, oddly enough, commonly and casually (and happily) embraced in one segment of popular music—if rap can be characterized that way.

The same type of cheap, mindless compassion that made people in the US military, no less, believe that Nidal Hasan, because he was a member of a sad, dejected, suffering minority or whatever, deserved to be tolerated until, of course, it was too late.

The PI report indicates that one of the major reasons for California desalination’s ‘immaturity’ is its lack of affordability.

“Urban Environment and Heritage,” Hyderabad City Development Plan. The treatment begins by
filtering the raw wastewater through the fine screen, and the refined fluid is then sent to the anoxic basin, and lastly to the MBR basins.

As to whether or not the Washington Redskins entirely lose trademark protection, that isn’t really clear.

A trademark can exist independently of the registration thereof.

The Lanham Act allows people to protect unregistered trademarks as well as registered ones, so the team could continue to attempt to protect their mark even should they ultimately lose the registration.

You can continue to write that media/agenda-driven PC and human compassion are the same thing, but you will continue to be wrong and look quite silly each and every time you say it and try to conflate the two. Language is important. Lashing out at people who try to clarify this does not make you look less silly. Your #35 above describes corrosive PC. Not a single one of your examples has a thing to do with “compassion” as it is commonly defined and understood.

Set me straight. The trademark only protects their exclusive right to use the image and name right? The team can still use them but now so can other people right? So the unintended consequence is that you are going to see a lot more Redskins merchandise on the street thus promoting the supposedly offensive Redskins term.

Thought Police exam #2: If a friend or close acquaintance at work invites you to a swingers club or a wife-swapping party — involving purely consenting adults, of course — should you happily accept it, pretend you’ll be busy that day, feel unsure about it but take him/her up on the offer anyway, or grimace and say fuggedabout it?

48.Thought Police exam question #2: Refuse it if it makes you uncomfortable, or some person you are intimate with would object, but don’t tell him he’s doing something wrong. You may say, if applicable, that psychologists advise against it.

The Lanham Act allows people to protect unregistered trademarks as well as registered ones, so the team could continue to attempt to protect their mark even should they ultimately lose the registration.

Snyder should rid himself of all on-field personnel lacking Native-American Heritage, replacing them with those that do.
That might give him a Truth In Advertising defense.
Think of the Promo possibilities:

“Hi, I’m linebacker Richard Bone Crusher, and I’m a Washington Redskin!”
Of course, it would help if the N-A names of the players related to their position.
Remember, it’s not what they’re saying about you in the media, only if they spell your name right.
(kudos to George Raft)

I think California should change all the city names that refer to saints or angels or other symbology of the oppressive, racist, anti-science Catholic Church (just watch the new Cosmos for details on these horrible people)!!

Federal trademark law does not permit registration of trademarks that “may disparage” individuals or groups or “bring them into contempt or disrepute.” The ruling pertains to six different trademarks associated with the team, each containing the word “Redskin.”

Who said that the name “Redskins” “bring[s Native Americans] into contempt or disrepute? I contend that in the cases of all but a handful of team names, the purpose is NOT to adopt a name or a mascot that has as its goal making the team seem weak or silly, but one that inspires determination, strength, even fear.

In the case of the Washington Redskins, the intent was certainly not to demean natives, but to honor them in the same way as did the owners of the first patch of grass the team played upon: The Boston Braves, later known as the Milwaukee Braves, and now known as the Atlanta Braves. In the early days of the NFL — back when baseball really was “America’s pastime” — pro football teams were the stepchildren of the Major League Baseball teams that hosted their games. From the New York Giants history webpage (italics mine):

WHY GIANTS? HOW THE NEW YORK FOOTBALL GIANTS GOT ITS NAME

[Original Giants'] Owner Tim Mara “borrowed” the Giants’ name from the city’s Major League Baseball team of the same name. This was not unusual among early day pro football franchises. At one time or another there were NFL franchises named the New York Yankees, Brooklyn Dodgers, Cleveland Indians, Cincinnati Reds, and Detroit Tigers.

Such was the case with the then-Boston Braves football team, who played at the National League Boston Braves’ Field in Boston. So where did “Redskins” come from? When the football Braves moved out of the baseball Braves’ stadium to the stadium built by the Boston Red Sox of the rival American League — Fenway Park. They couldn’t use the Braves’ name while playing in the Red Sox’s park, so they changed the name of the team from “Boston Braves” to “Boston Redskins.” The team retained the nickname when they moved to D.C.

It’s that simple. No “contempt.” Zero “disrepute.” There was no purpose in the switch from “Braves” to “Redskins” of reminiscing about the days when there were bounties put on the severed scalps of natives, or any other story that the detractors are using to ply their arguments.

Speaking of which: In answer to the earlier question of who said “Redskins” brings anyone into contempt or disrepute, the answer is five activist Native Americans who filed the complaint with the Patent and Trademark Office. But they are representative of the majority of the people they claim to represent, aren’t they?

In 2004, the Annenberg Public Policy Center (yes, from Walter Annenberg, the guy behind FactCheck.org and who was responsible for putting Barack Obama and Bill Ayers in charge of a Chicago education reform project) published their election-year survey of Native Americans asking this question (verbatim):

“The professional football team in Washington calls itself the Washington Redskins. As a Native American, do you find that name offensive or doesn’t it bother you?”

As it turned out, the answer from the Native Americans was crystal-clear. A whopping 91% said that “Redskins” was offensive.

Oh, but it must have been some white conservative guy who was in charge of that survey, right? Well, you’ve got the white part right. See if this name rings a bell: Adam Clymer, listed in the press release as the “political director” of the survey.

If you used to frequent Free Republic as I did in the late nineties, you know who he is: He’s the former New York Times reporter that then-candidate Governor George W. Bush referenced in an unfortunate “open-mic” moment. Maybe one of the reasons why Bush was so moved to that description is because he (or his father) was the victim of Clymer’s “Major League” hackery, which in later years produced this aromatic nugget about Ted Kennedy:

[His] achievements as a Senator have towered over his time, changing the lives of far more Americans than remember the name Mary Jo Kopechne…”

“Look, let’s suppose my numbers were 100 percent right, that 90 percent of American Indians were okay with it and that the people on the other end of the phone were actually what they said they were,” he said. “Given that, what if you had a dinner party and you invited 10 people. And by the end of the night it’s pretty clear that nine of them have had a tremendous time and really enjoyed the food and company. But one of them you managed to completely insult and demean, to the point where people around them noticed and it was uncomfortable. So, ask yourself: Were you a social success that night?”

This raises another question for Clymer: If it doesn’t matter what the results of the survey were, why the hell did you bother conducting it in the first place? Seems to me that you invested eleven months (October 2003 -September 2004) in the hopes that your pre-conceived notions of tribal outrage would be confirmed, perhaps making it suitable for a divisive campaign issue. When it wasn’t, you pretended it was meaningless that your point-of-view came up the loser.

Lucky for you, Clymer, you have a fellow “major-leaguer” in the White House, who doesn’t care what the facts are. Screw the First Amendment. He’s got a pen, and he’s got a phone, and he’s going to what he wants on his own. And from your remarks about Kennedy, we know you don’t mind if a few rules are broken on the way to policy changes you desire.

Here’s a serious question about the Washington Redskins: Does anyone actually think about indians when referring to the football team? I know I don’t. I have to constantly hear my faith and heritage ridiculed. I couldn’t care less. It’s called coexisting. Don’t like the Redskin name, don’t support their team. I’d be down with the NFL changing the NY Giants to the NY Capos. Us Eye-talians wants us some representatin” in the NFL!

It’s a great country we live in when the government is more interested in revoking a trademark because five injun’s objected than finding out the truth about Benghazi, locating the “Lost” IRS emails or taking care of our veterans. Well done Obama, well done indeed! Cause after all the government has the authority to tell a franchise that it’s name of 82 friggin’ years is now “offensive”. Any body ever hear of ex post facto? Or perhaps statutes of limitations? You would figure the government would bend over backward to defend free speech, being a First Amendment right and all, but I guess that’s just another “right” which no longer exists under the Régime.

He also said the IRS scandal was made up, and sure enough, Republicans have failed to find a single Lois Lerner smoking gun email.

Are you completely ignoring the fact that the IRS claims to have lost the emails in a “system crash”, despite the fact that no one elses email was lost and all of their email is hosted on centralized servers?

The Chi Trib has an online survey (unofficial of course) on whether people find the mascot and team name Redskins offensive or not. The current tally is:
26% yes I do
74% no I don’t
Obviously, this looks very much like a manufactured “thought police” issue, not a genuine issue of concern for Americans. Squirrel!

You know thus significantly in the case of this subject, made me individually imagine it from numerous varied angles. Its like men and women don’t seem to be interested unless it’s one thing to do with Lady gaga! Your own stuffs excellent. All the time deal with it up!